The Christopher C. Gibbs College of Architecture envisions a future where communities are adaptive and empowered to thrive. Our research supports this vision by addressing real-world challenges, fostering creative solutions, and preparing students to make lasting contributions. Focus areas include entrepreneurship, health and wellbeing, placemaking, and sustainability. Through interdisciplinary work in areas such as BIM technology, accessible housing, and human-centered design, our faculty and students help shape a resilient built environment. This work is supported by a network of research centers and institutes that deepen our impact across Oklahoma and around the world.
We are dedicated to innovation and agency in planning, design, and construction. Our entrepreneurial practice supports community-oriented research by working at the leading edge of ideas, technologies, methods, and processes across disciplines, in areas such as BIM technology, accessible housing, and lean construction and management.
By exploring the intersections between the built environment and community health and well-being, we create meaningful impact. Recent projects have examined how residents experience hope within their neighborhoods, designed beautiful and accessible housing for people of all ages, and integrated insights from neuroscience to inform more empathetic, human-centered design.
We are committed to reimagining cities that foster opportunity, accessibility, and the principles of universal design. Our faculty lead research on pressing issues such as rural food systems, disparities in homeownership, neighborhood and Main Street revitalization, historic preservation, and access to natural environments in urban areas for people of all ages and backgrounds. Gibbs College also hosts the Gibbs Design Activism Awards, empowering students to propose and lead projects that critically engage with community, social, and economic challenges within the built environment.
Working at the forefront of their fields, our faculty are advancing a resilient future for built environments and the communities they serve. From engineering timber structures that endure extreme weather, to developing innovative solar panel clips and designing responsive, sustainable facades, they are committed to creating practical, forward-thinking solutions to today’s most pressing challenges.
The American School Project strives to document and share the development and impacts of the school of design and practice that developed at the University of Oklahoma in the 1950s and ’60s.
CMEAC seeks to advance knowledge of the Middle Eastern build environment and culture for its intellectual and academic values.
The CPD builds upon a legacy of collaborative partnerships between OU faculty and students and communities affected by conflict in northern Uganda.
The Carceral Studies Consortium brings together faculty, staff and students across colleges at the University of Oklahoma to cultivate rigorous scholarship and community engagement toward social transformation in the broad area of Carceral Studies.
The BIM + VIZ Lab space is designed for teams of researchers and designers to interact in an immersive virtual reality environment to support interdisciplinary teams as they interface with technology in the analysis of spatial, data, and temporal aspects of a facility or infrastructure model.
The Institute for Quality Communities (IQC), based in Gibbs College, partners with communities across Oklahoma to tackle local challenges through design, planning, and policy. By sharing best practices and fostering dialogue, IQC helps strengthen civic spaces and support development. Its biennial Placemaking Conference brings together national experts, local leaders, and students to explore strategies for building vibrant, resilient communities.
Gibbs College Architecture professor and director of the Center for Middle Eastern Architecture and Culture, Dr. Khosrow Bozorgi, is publishing a new book, Medieval Courtyard Design Converging Urban Morphologies from Europe to the Middle East. It will be released by Routledge on December 30, 2025.
The Community Catalyst team partnered with Sisu Youth Services Inc. to provide architectural services to support them in their goal of ending homelessness in the Oklahoma City area. The GDAA team undertook a winding process of learning how to support the design needs of this non-profit.
Gibbs College of Architecture proudly congratulates Dr. Shakil Ahmad Shimul, assistant professor of Architecture, whose collaborative research with Dr. Wei Li, Associate Professor of Chemical Engineering at Texas Tech University, has led to a newly issued U.S. Patent (No. 12,435,903 B2) titled “Electroactive Polymer Valve,” and issued October 7, 2025.
An interdisciplinary team of researchers from the University of Oklahoma Norman (OU Norman) and OU Health, including Interior Design professors, has published their study in the journal Virtual Reality.
Dr. Ladan Mozaffarian, Assistant Professor in the Division of Planning, Landscape Architecture, and Design at the OU Christopher C. Gibbs College of Architecture, has recently published her research in the prestigious journal Cities: The International Journal of Urban Policy and Planning. Her article, “Unveiling the dynamics of innovation districts: An empirical study of key features and governance structure in fourteen U.S. cities,” explores the growing phenomenon of innovation districts (IDs)—place-based strategies designed to foster entrepreneurship, collaboration, and economic development in urban areas.
